(_The two pamphlets entitled _The Conduct of the Allies_ and _The
Public Spirit of the Whigs_--which are sometimes considered the
capital examples of the political efforts of Swift's magnificent
genius--were the very Jachin and Boaz of the Tory administration in
the last years of Anne, and the effect of them has been admitted by
such a violent Whig and such a good critic as Jeffrey. They seemed,
however, not wholly suitable for insertion here; first, because of
their length (for one would have occupied nearly a third, the other
nearly a fourth of this volume), and secondly, because the greater
part of each does really, to some extent, underlie the charge brought
against political pamphlets generally, and, being occupied with a
great number of personal and particular matters, requires either much
intimacy with the period or elaborate and probably tedious comparison
and elucidation, to make it intelligible. No such drawback attaches
to the almost more famous _Drapier's Letters_, of which I give the
first and second. They were written at the very zenith of their
author's marvellous powers, and at the time when his _sæva indignatio_
was heated seven times hotter than usual by the conviction that his
last hope of English promotion was gone. Their circumstances are
simple and well known. Wood had received a patent to coin copper money
for Ireland to the amount of £108,000. Most commentators seem to think
that he would have done this honestly enough; to me the simple fact
that on the revocation of his patent a pension of £3000 a year was
given to him in compensation is proof enough of the contrary. It is
impossible to imagine any honest profit on a transaction of such a
nature to such an amount which could rise to the capital value of such
a pension. That Swift was instigated to take up his pen against the
transaction by private griefs against the Ministry is extremely
probable; that the thing was not a job less so. As before, I must
refer to biographers for the details of the matter; the text is what
interests us here. I shall only remind the reader that Swift was
fifty-seven when the 'Drapier' wrote, that _Gulliver_ appeared about
three years later, and that Swift himself expired--lunatic and
miserable beyond utterance--on the 19th October 1745, twenty-one years
after all Dublin and half England had rung with the boldness and the
triumph of the 'Drapier.'_)
I
TO THE TRADESMEN, SHOP-KEEPERS, FARMERS, AND COMMON-PEOPLE IN GENERAL,
OF THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND; CONCERNING THE BRASS HALF-PENCE COINED BY
MR. WOOD.
Brethren, Friends, Countrymen, and Fellow Subjects--What I intend now
to say to you, is, next to your duty to God, and the care of your
salvation, of the greatest concern to yourselves, and your children;
your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life entirely
depend upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as men, as
Christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read this
paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others;
which that you may do at the less expence, I have ordered the printer
to sell it at the lowest rate.
It is a great fault among you, that when a person writes with no other
intention than to do you good you will not be at the pains to read his
advices: one copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will
be less than a farthing a-piece. It is your folly that you have no
common or general interest in your view, not even the wisest among
you, neither do you know or enquire, or care who are your friends or
who are your enemies.
About four years ago, a little book was written, to advise all people
to wear the manufactures of this our own dear country: it had no other
design, said nothing against the king or Parliament, or any man, yet
the poor printer was prosecuted two years, with the utmost violence,
and even some weavers themselves, for whose sake it was written, being
upon the jury, found him guilty. This would be enough to discourage
any man from endeavouring to do you good, when you will either neglect
him or fly in his face for his pains, and when he must expect only
danger to himself and loss of money, perhaps to his ruin.
However, I cannot but warn you once more of the manifest destruction
before your eyes, if you do not behave yourselves as you ought.
I will therefore first tell you the plain story of the fact; and then
I will lay before you how you ought to act in common prudence, and
according to the laws of your country.
The fact is thus, It having been many years since copper half-pence or
farthings were last coined in this kingdom, they have been for some
time very scarce, and many counterfeits passed about under the name of
raps. Several applications were made to England, that we might have
liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not
succeed. At last one Mr. Wood a mean ordinary man, a hard-ware dealer,
procured a patent under his Majesty's Broad Seal to coin fourscore and
ten thousand pounds in copper for this kingdom, which patent however
did not oblige any one here to take them, unless they pleased. Now you
must know, that the half-pence and farthings in England pass for very
little more than they are worth. And if you should beat them to
pieces, and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose above a penny
in a shilling. But Mr. Wood made his half-pence of such base metal,
and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would not
give you above a penny of good money for a shilling of his; so that
this sum of fourscore and ten thousand pounds in good gold and silver,
must be given for trash that will not be worth above eight or nine
thousand pounds real value. But this is not the worst, for Mr. Wood,
when he pleases, may by stealth send over another and another
fourscore and ten thousand pounds, and buy all our goods for eleven
parts in twelve, under the value. For example, if a hatter sells a
dozen of hats for five shillings a-piece, which amounts to three
pounds, and receives the payment in Mr. Wood's coin, he really
receives only the value of five shillings.
Perhaps you will wonder how such an ordinary fellow as this Mr. Wood
could have so much interest as to get his Majesty's Broad Seal for so
great a sum of bad money to be sent to this poor country, and that
all the nobility and gentry here could not obtain the same favour, and
let us make our own half-pence, as we used to do. Now I will make that
matter very plain. We are at a great distance from the king's court,
and have nobody there to solicit for us, although a great number of
lords and squires, whose estates are here, and are our countrymen,
spend all their lives and fortunes there. But this same Mr. Wood was
able to attend constantly for his own interest; he is an Englishman
and had great friends, and it seems knew very well where to give money
to those that would speak to others that could speak to the king and
could tell a fair story. And his majesty, and perhaps the great lord
or lords who advised him, might think it was for our country's good;
and so, as the lawyers express it, the king was deceived in his grant,
which often happens in all reigns. And I am sure if his majesty knew
that such a patent, if it should take effect according to the desire
of Mr. Wood, would utterly ruin this kingdom, which hath given such
great proofs of its loyalty, he would immediately recall it, and
perhaps show his displeasure to somebody or other: but a word to the
wise is enough. Most of you must have heard, with what anger our
honourable House of Commons receiv'd an account of this Wood's patent.
There were several fine speeches made upon it, and plain proofs that
it was all a wicked cheat from the bottom to the top, and several
smart votes were printed, which that same Wood had the assurance to
answer likewise in print, and in so confident a way, as if he were a
better man than our whole Parliament put together.
This Wood, as soon as his patent was passed, or soon after, sends over
a great many barrels of those half-pence, to Cork and other seaport
towns, and to get them off, offered an hundred pounds in his coin for
seventy or eighty in silver: but the collectors of the king's customs
very honestly refused to take them, and so did almost everybody else.
And since the Parliament hath condemned them, and desired the king
that they might be stopped, all the kingdom do abominate them.
But Wood is still working under hand to force his half-pence upon us,
and if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to
get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the king's money
shall receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he
thinks his work shall be done. And this is the difficulty you will be
under in such a case: for the common soldier when he goes to the
market or ale-house will offer this money, and if it be refused,
perhaps he will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher
or ale-wife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad
half-pence. In this and the like cases the shop-keeper, or victualler,
or any other tradesman, has no more to do than to demand ten times
the price of his goods if it is to be paid in Wood's money; for
example, twenty pence of that money for a quart of ale, and so in all
things else, and not part with his goods till he gets the money.
For suppose you go to an ale-house with that base money, and the
landlord gives you a quart for four of these half-pence, what must the
victualler do? His brewer will not be paid in that coin, or if the
brewer should be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them
for their bere, because they are bound by their leases to pay their
rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of
Ireland neither, and the Squire their landlord will never be so
bewitched to take such trash for his land; so that it must certainly
stop somewhere or other, and where-ever it stops it is the same thing,
and we are all undone.
The common weight of these half-pence is between four and five to an
ounce; suppose five, then three shillings and fourpence will weigh a
pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pounds butter
weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a
year rent. Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his half
year's rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six
hundred pound weight, which is three horses load.
If a squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and
spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here, he
must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the
farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our
shops, it must be followed by a car loaded with Mr. Wood's money. And
I hope we shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is
worth.
They say Squire Conolly has sixteen thousand pounds a year; now if he
sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two
hundred and fifty horses to bring up his half-year's rent, and two or
three great cellars in his house for stowage. But what the bankers
will do I cannot tell. For I am assured that some great bankers keep
by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash, to answer all payments,
which sum, in Mr. Wood's money, would require twelve hundred horses to
carry it.
For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty
good shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's
bad copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and
bakers, and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little
gold and silver I have I will keep by me like my heart's blood till
better times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy
Mr. Wood's money, as my father did the brass money in K. James's time,
who could buy ten pound of it with a guinea, and I hope to get as
much for a pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such
fools as to sell it me.
These half-pence, if they once pass, will soon be counterfeit, because
it may be cheaply done, the stuff is so base. The Dutch likewise will
probably do the same thing, and send them over to us to pay for our
goods; and Mr. Wood will never be at rest but coin on: so that in some
years we shall have at least five times fourscore and ten thousand
pounds of this lumber. Now the current money of this kingdom is not
reckoned to be above four hundred thousand pounds in all; and while
there is a silver sixpence left, these blood-suckers will never be
quiet.
When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition I will tell you
what must be the end: the gentlemen of estates will all turn off their
tenants for want of payment, because, as I told you before, the
tenants are obliged by their leases to pay sterling, which is lawful
current money of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as
too many of them do already, run all into sheep where they can,
keeping only such other cattle as are necessary; then they will be
their own merchants, and send their wool and butter and hides and
linen beyond sea for ready money and wine and spices and silks. They
will keep only a few miserable cottiers. The farmers must rob or beg,
or leave their country. The shop-keepers in this and every other town
must break and starve: for it is the landed man that maintains the
merchant, and shop-keeper, and handicraftsman.
But when the squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good
money he gets from abroad he will hoard up to send for England, and
keep some poor tailor or weaver and the like in his own house, who
will be glad to get bread at any rate.
I should never have done, if I were to tell you all the miseries that
we shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this cursed
coin. It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one
scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should
weigh down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million
of good money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more
than the English do by all the world besides.
But your great comfort is, that, as his majesty's patent does not
oblige you to take this money, so the laws have not given the Crown a
power of forcing the subjects to take what money the king pleases: for
then, by the same reason, we might be bound to take pebble-stones or
cockle-shells, or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should
happen to live under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same
power make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty
shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the
silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us
nothing but brass or leather or what he pleased. Neither is anything
reckoned more cruel or oppressive in the French Government than their
common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it
very low, and then coining it a-new at a much higher value, which
however is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable
project of Mr. Wood. For the French give their subjects silver for
silver, and gold for gold; but this fellow will not so much as give us
good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part
of their worth.
Having said this much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of
some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee'd on purpose for your
sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure
I went upon good grounds.
A famous law-book call'd the _Mirrour of Justice_, discoursing of the
articles (or laws) ordained by our ancient kings, declares the law to
be as follows: It was ordained that no king of this realm should
change, impair, or amend the money or make any other money than of
gold or silver without the assent of all the counties, that is, as my
Lord Coke says, without the assent of Parliament.
This book is very ancient, and of great authority for the time in
which it was wrote, and with that character is often quoted by that
great lawyer my Lord Coke. By the laws of England, several metals are
divided into lawful or true metal and unlawful or false metal; the
former comprehends silver or gold, the latter all baser metals: that
the former is only to pass in payments appears by an Act of Parliament
made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called the statute
concerning the passing of pence, which I give you here as I got it
translated into English; for some of our laws at that time were, as I
am told, writ in Latin: Whoever in buying or selling presumeth to
refuse an half-penny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp
which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the
king's majesty, and cast to prison.
By this statute, no person is to be reckoned a contemner of the king's
majesty, and for that crime to be committed to prison, but he who
refuses to accept the king's coin made of lawful metal, by which, as I
observ'd before, silver and gold only are intended.
That this is the true construction of the Act, appears not only from
the plain meaning of the words, but from my Lord Coke's observation
upon it. By this Act (says he) it appears that no subject can be
forc'd to take in buying or selling or other payments, any money made
but of lawful metal; that is, of silver or gold.
The law of England gives the king all mines of gold and silver, but
not the mines of other metals; the reason of which prerogative or
power, as it is given by my Lord Coke, is, because money can be made
of gold and silver, but not of other metals.
Pursuant to this opinion half-pence and farthings were anciently made
of silver, which is more evident from the Act of Parliament of Henry
the IVth. chap. 4, by which it is enacted as follows: Item, for the
great scarcity that is at present within the realm of England of
half-pence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established
that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be
brought to the bullion, shall be made in half-pence and farthings.
This shows that by the words half-penny and farthing of lawful money
in that statute concerning the passing of pence, is meant a small coin
in half-pence and farthings of silver.
This is further manifest from the statute of the ninth year of Edward
the IIId. chap. 3, which enacts, That no sterling half-penny or
farthing be molten for to make vessel, or any other thing by the
goldsmiths, nor others, upon forfeiture of the money so molten (or
melted).
By another Act in this king's reign black money was not to be current
in England, and by an Act made in the eleventh year of his reign,
chap. 5, galley half-pence were not to pass: what kind of coin these
were I do not know, but I presume they were made of base metal, and
that these Acts were no new laws, but further declarations of the old
laws relating to the coin.
Thus the law stands in relation to coin, nor is there any example to
the contrary, except one in Davis's _Reports_, who tells us, that in
the time of Tyrone's rebellion Queen Elizabeth ordered money of mixt
metal to be coined in the Tower of London, and sent over hither for
payment of the army, obliging all people to receive it, and commanding
that all silver money should be taken only as bullion, that is, for as
much as it weighed. Davis tells us several particulars in this matter
too long here to trouble you with, and that the Privy Council of this
kingdom obliged a merchant in England to receive this mixt money for
goods transmitted hither.
But this proceeding is rejected by all the best lawyers as contrary to
law, the Privy Council here having no such power. And, besides, it is
to be considered that the Queen was then under great difficulties by a
rebellion in this kingdom, assisted from Spain, and whatever is done
in great exigences and dangerous times should never be an example to
proceed by in seasons of peace and quietness.
I will now, my dear friends, to save you the trouble, set before you,
in short, what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige
you to.
First, You are oblig'd to take all money in payments which is coin'd
by the king and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be
of gold or silver.
Secondly, You are not oblig'd to take any money which is not of gold
or silver, not only the half-pence or farthings of England, or of any
other country; and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are
content to take them, because the custom of coining silver half-pence
and farthings hath long been left off, I will suppose on account of
their being subject to be lost.
Thirdly, Much less are we oblig'd to take those vile half-pence of
that same Wood, by which you must lose almost eleven-pence in every
shilling.
Therefore, my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy
trash: it is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood; his majesty in his
patent obliges nobody to take these half-pence; our gracious prince
hath no so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws
have not left it in the king's power, to force us to take any coin but
what is lawful, of right standard, gold and silver; therefore you have
nothing to fear.
And let me in the next place apply myself particularly to you who are
the poor sort of tradesmen: perhaps you may think you will not be so
great losers as the rich if these half-pence should pass, because you
seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls
with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got; but
you may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you
will be utterly undone; if you carry these half-pence to a shop for
tobacco or brandy, or any other thing you want, the shop-keeper will
advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break and leave the key
under the door. Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff
for twenty of Mr. Wood's half-pence? No, not under two hundred at
least, neither will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in
a lump. I will tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood's project
should take it will ruin even our beggars: for when I give a beggar an
half-penny, it will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his
belly; but the twelfth part of a half-penny will do him no more
service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve.
In short those half-pence are like the accursed thing, which, as the
Scripture tells us, the children of Israel were forbidden to touch;
they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his
hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king
that he had invented a way to torment people by putting them into a
bull of brass with fire under it, but the prince put the projector
first into his own brazen bull to make the experiment; this very much
resembles the project of Mr. Wood; and the like of this may possibly
be Mr. Wood's fate, that the brass he contrived to torment this
kingdom with, may prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.
_N.B._--The author of this paper is inform'd by persons who have made
it their business to be exact in their observations on the true value
of these half-pence, that any person may expect to get a quart of
twopenny ale for thirty-six of them.
I desire all persons may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh
their memories whenever they shall have further notice of Mr. Wood's
half-pence or any other the like imposture.